Saturday, August 6, 2016

Found another street vendor

On Wednesday I was walking from my office to Penn Station after work and saw a Bradlee's truck stopped at a light on Sixth Avenue. Bradlee's never had a New York City location but that is not why seeing one was so surprising - it is that there hasn't been a Bradlee's location anywhere in fifteen years, as the store went bankrupt in 2001. So it was practically a ghost truck riding around, which would have made a great wallet card photo. Unfortunately by the time I got my phone out and my card out of my wallet the light had changed and the truck was too far away for a picture.

I knew it was unlikely I'd ever see the truck again (I wonder if it was this one) but the next day I decided to walk a little further along Sixth that I usually do, just in case it happened to be going by at about the same time, so I walked to 32nd street instead of 34th (doesn't sound like much but it gets you past Herald Square so at 32nd you can see quite a bit further than you can from 34th). Of course I didn't see anything so I walked down 32nd to Penn Station, where to my surprise I found a baseball card street vendor.

Actually he was more of a basketball card vendor than a baseball card vendor (I asked him his name and he said "Baby Starks" - as in John Starks). His setup is half a block from MSG so he probably does very well before Knick games. He had a fair amount of baseball stuff, though, particularly some really interesting dollar bags. Each bag had about 15 cards in it and they were mostly cards from the last three years. I picked out four bags - two with Yankees in front, and two with Mike Trout in front (because how often can you pick up Trout cards for less than a dime?). 

Here are some highlights:
There were a couple of Mike Trout cards, from 2013 and 2014 Topps Update. I had just been reading on Night Owl's blog how expensive his 2011 Update card was, so that was in my mind when I saw these.
 I see Bowman is still doing it's state flag parallels. Looks pretty good.
 It's nice to see retro designs from a brand other than Topps. The 1988 Donruss design wasn't my favorite but it does make me nostalgic from getting new cards when I was a kid.
 Not all of the cards were current; there were a few older ones like this nice Bam-Bam Meulens oddball.
 The next day I went back but he didn't have anything new. So I walked around a little bit and stumbled on something that will make an even better wallet card post - but that is for another day.

3 comments:

  1. I hope this sports card street vendor trend makes its way out to the west coast.

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    Replies
    1. ...and makes a stop in the Midwest while it's on it's way. I've never encountered such a thing

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  2. I worked at Bradlees in the mid-1980s. Great times. Nothing makes me feel older when I hear about them "going out of business years ago."

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